Caillou Pettis
Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore underwhelmed at the box office, despite leading the way with an estimated $43 million opening. That’s by far a new low for both the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts franchises, although it’s about in line with pre-release projections.
The film starts -42% behind 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ($74.4M) and -30% behind 2018’s sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald ($62.1M).
After Paramount’s family action-comedy Sonic the Hedgehog 2 opened on top last weekend with $72.1M, it fell -58% this frame to an estimated $30.0M and second place. While the previously mentioned franchise may be on its last legs, this one appears to be just getting started.
Meanwhile, in fourth place was Everything Everywhere All At Once, which opened wide this weekend and earned a total of $6.18M at the box office across 970 locations. The indie hit of the year so far is looking like a strong crossover success.
The other new release this weekend was Father Stu, but the Mark Wahlberg led faith-based feature could only muster up a $5.7M start, good for a meek fifth place showing.
Here’s the full list of the top ten films of the week:
- Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore – $43M – 4,208 theatres
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – $30M (-58%) – 4,258 theatres
- The Lost City – $6.5M (-28%) – 3,430 theatres
- Everything Everywhere All At Once (+2%) – $6.18M – 970 theatres
- Father Stu – $5.7M – 2,705 theatres
- Morbius – $4.7M (-54%) – 3,462 theatres
- Ambulance – $4M (-54%) – 3,412 theatres
- The Batman – $3.8M (-41%) – 2,535 theatres
- K.G.F: Chapter 2 – $2.87M – 510 theatres
- Uncharted – $1.17M (-56%) – 1,311 theatres
Source: Box Office Pro
Okay. So… are we finally done with these movies? Can Warner Bros move on to something else, now?
Can we stop pretending these were in any way a meaningful step forward for gay representation in blockbuster filmmaking (especially since they only had to cut six seconds out of the latest movie to make Dumbledore and Grindelwald un-gay)? Can the actors involved in this hopefully-soon-to-be-put-out-of-its-misery series stop having to recite mealy-mouthed “well I don’t agree with her and something something all lives matter but she has a right to her opinion mumble mumble cancel culture” lines their agents told them to memorize for the press junket?
I accept the fact that this franchise dying a slow, agonizing death had nothing to do with J.K. Rowling’s bigotry, any more than the results of the 2020 election had much to do with the former President’s fascist overtures. But just like the 2020 election, if gross incompetence turning off the general public is the thing that brings down this moribund franchise, I’ll take it.